Monday, November 09, 2009

Korg Update

Korg no longer require the USB "dongle" as copy protection for their Legacy Collection synths. They have also today released an update for Mac snow leopard. Woo hoo! Today is a great day for that.

Saturday, November 07, 2009

MP4 Sessions

The jam sessions for the Korg mono/poly are exploring the various presets from korguser.net and playing the distorted ones with intervals that make some very righteous sounds. There are some good sounds just in the downloads for this synth.

Gut feelings lead to very simplistic hardcore sounding riffs. The arp voices lend themselves to some freaky things sort of like what I'd expect from the Native Instruments Absynth 4. Some of the voices suggest preludes to songs, but the best of the lead sounds really lend themselves to hardcore.

I'm going to jam with these voices for a while before even thinking of new material. I still want to spend time with the MS-20 and Polysix voices to keep things melodic and musical.

Friday, November 06, 2009

Korg Legacy Collection Analog Edition 2007
I've been waiting quite a while to get this update to my synth collection. Korg originally included the WAVESTATION synth in their analog collection, but have replaced it with Mono/Poly, the Korg MP4. That is the synth I've been looking for. The presets include lots of ARP stuff, and some formant vocal patches that are fun to play with. I like it enough to be tied to a USB dongle for copy protection. My computer only has 2 USB ports, but in general, I only use the other one for keyboard input. This leaves me one free for recording vocals later. Not really a problem in my setup.

The PolySix and MS20 synths are as expected and I may even find use for legacy cell, but this Mono/Poly is the one I've been waiting for. There are some voices that go beyond any MiniMoog emulation I've heard, and it rivals the SonicProjects OP-X that I already have. There are even some string machine sounding voices that Mono/Poly does well.

I think I'll find some great uses for Mono/Poly, and it is a good feeling to have PolySix in the arsenal again. My hardware version has seen better days, but this software recreation is a comfort to have around. MS20 is useful in a variety of unique situations, and the LegacyCell has some nice sounding combinations of synths to work with.

It's just a matter of time before these synth legends speak out in my music.